Road Trip: Ohio. Again...
Day 5: Saturday, April 15, 2023 - Milwaukee, WI
Day's statistics:
Weather: upper 50s
Steps: Steve 13,259; Linda 12,233
Travel: 149 miles
Breakfast was a full buffet. Linda had a bagel with cream cheese, and I had eggs and sausage.
By 8:45 we were heading out to town.
Our first full day without a capital.
Just before 9:00, we approached the city and saw the skyline.
We headed for the historic Third Ward.
We drove around the center block once with nary a parking space available. On the next pass,
someone in the fifth or so spot was just leaving, so we grabbed it.
Our first stop was the public market, a Gimbel Brothers building.
We entered and went upstairs to oversee the facility. It was still early, so it really wasn't too busy. Yet.
A close-up of one of the pieces on the wall from the second image above.
In the corner of the second floor was a collection of historical photographs presented by the Italian Community Center.
They were interesting, but there aren't too many here because we really couldn't relate(?).
We descended to the first floor and window shopped most of the booths.
We exited the Market and headed toward the River Walk. This bird sculpture was across the street.
We arrived at the River Walk. When it is completed, it will be a 3.1 mile long pedestrian walkway from the former North
Avenue Dam all the way to Lake Michigan. We weren't going to walk anywhere near that much, but our walk did last over
an hour. The walk is a combination of piers - below or at street level - and sidewalks, and some street crossing - there
were even lifts (or ramps) for the physically challenged. There were quite a few items that we came across.
And looking back at the route behind where we started and we will not be covering.
Here is a pier sort of section near the Public Market, The 45 on the decking is how wide the river is at this point.
Other markers further down looked like they were stolen.
And looking back again.
Continuing on - a couple of pedestrian crosswalks over the river.
A couple of interesting and stylish street signs, the first with direction markers on the top too.
Taking advantage of the light, early Saturday morning traffic.
A very tall older looking building.
Near the Chase Tower was this riverwalk map.
A lone flower.
There was a lone man sitting on the dock of the bay. I mean on the river's edge. He seemed to be
enjoying the solitude and quite. When we were in the area, he seemed to go into the City Hall Square Apartments, and
reappear. We weren't exactly tracking him. And the rectangular box in the upper left corner of the first image is the left.
Across the river was this mural (?) on the side of a building.
Near where the guy was sitting by the water were these two sculptures.
The main entrance to the apartments.
After walking for a bit, we noticed these symbols embedded in the sidewalk - assumedly the riverwalk markers.
And then there were these on some of the buildings, most notably on street corners.
While I had read about this, I sort of forgot about it. It also wasn't the reason for our trip to the riverwalk. Aaaaaaaaaaaay.
The Milwaukee Electric, Railway, & Light Company building, aka the Oneida Street Station.
In this station pulverized coal was first successfully burned continuously and at high efficiencies in furnaces of stationary
steam boilers November 11-15, 1919. This radical departure from conventional firing methods of the period was vigorously
opposed by some engineers during its early stages. It soon met with local, national, and international acceptance, and has
resulted in great benefits to mankind through reduced cost of electric power and conservation of fuel resources.
Looking down the same street.
A painted stair case.
We walked five blocks up, and cross the river. I crossed the street to get shots of some sculptures.
Pere Marquette Park, on the water.
A shot up river while crossing the bridge near the park above.
We started back toward the Public Market, but noticed things were a little different on this side of the river. Either this
side is newer or older - based on the riverwalk markers that have been significantly upgraded. A group of these markers though
they were encountered intermittently with the other artifacts.
Some other sights on the way back.
Even the little metal pieces to prevent skateboarding are artistic.
The city skyline on the side of the parking garage.
Also on this side of the river were these duck statues. They were pretty much life size. We captured the first
four, and then stopped because there we so many of them and we knew we wouldn't be able to get them all.
Here are "Rosie The Riviter", "Freddie", "Black Bill", and "Debra and Ella".
We walked until we got to the bridge we first walked under, so that we could cross over to the east side where our car was.
At this spot, there was a square-ish flight of stairs - with a bench on the landing - that had an equally square permiter that
had a ramp for those that may need / want to use it.
Our trek brought us right back to the Public Market - we were parked across the street, afterall - so we went inside to use
the restroom before we got underway again. it was considerably more crowded a little more than an hour later...
On the way out to our next stop we came across this marker. It was facing the other direction, so I flipped it so it was readable.
Our next stop was ten minutes down the road: Saint Josaphat Basilica. Saint Josaphat is a Polish cathedral, and has the
second largest steel dome in the US, second to the US Capital dome.
Our visit started in a space that was turned into a gift shop.
The self-guided audio tour had 15 stops, and the first one was on the same level as, and just outside, the gift shop.
On display was The Last Supper, by Germano Cortese, in porcelain.
Some stained glass in this space, taken from the hallway on the level above.
We proceeded down that hallway toward the nave, and paused - as the audio tour told us to - to admire more stained glass windows. We also saw a
statue of Saint Joseph holding baby Jesus. In the last picture, the saint on the left - Saint Joseph of Cupertino - is levitating because he experienced
miraculous levitation and ecstatic visions, and is now the patron saint of aviation and astronauts, as well as students and test takers.
We finally entered the nave.
The dome.
The round images with the stars, starting at 12:00, are: Amos, Jonah, Isaiah, Elijah, Moses, Joshua, Jeremiah, and Daniel.
The larger semicircular images, starting at 12:00, are: James the Younger and Augustine, Bartholowmew and Jerome, John and
Gregory the Great, Mark and Alphonsus Liguouri, Peter and Paul, Matthew and John Chrysostum, Luke and Anbrose, and
James the Elder and Thomas Aquinas.
Some of the stained glass around the basillica.
The apses, left to right, for Virgin Mary, Jesus resurected, Our Lady of Czestochowa Annunciation,
and Joseph with Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Francis of Asissi.
The altar, and a close-ups of an angel on the altar, and the ceiling and skylight above the altar.
The stations of the cross.
The ambo.
A composite of the pipe organ and the window behind it.
The baptismal font.
A dove carving in marble.
This is a basillica, not a church. That means that the bishop gives service there. This basillica was the third declared
basillica, ever - today there are over sixty. One way to identify a basillica is with the "ombrellino" (the umbrella) and
the crossed keys.
This pipe was painted to blend in with the "marble" around it.
Marble is in quotes above because, well, it isn't actually marble. It is just painted to look like stone. Here is
a close\-up of a portion that shows the paint strokes.
At the beginning of the aisles were two of these angels holding holy water basins.
Our audio and walking tour of the main floor were complete.
We headed to the basement. There was a complete church set-up. It might have been for daily service
and or special services. There was an altar, tabernacle, small pipe organ, piano, and more seating
than we have in our own church.
A Sacred Heart statue.
There was a decent size collection of relics and artifacts in an enclosed area (behind the
gate in the back right corner of the first image of the basement church area above).
Due to the angles of most of the items on display, most of them cannot be seen well.
Before departing the basement, we got this wooden carving of the Last Supper in the altar of the
church space in the basement.
At the top of the stairs near the exit was this rendition of Madonna and baby Jesus.
Also near the top of the stairs (?) was this Infant of Prague statue.
The basillica was very nice and well kept. We concluded our tour, and it was time for lunch.
Lunch was pub-style at The Vanguard, less than two miles away.
We shared a portion of the fried cheese curds with bacon stein aioli. They were a lot like mozzarella stick pieces.
Linda had the Thai Breaker.
I had Thee Durty Burger.
We enjoyed our meal by about 1:00 we headed out.
Not far from The Vanguard we came across this restaurant that had outdoor seating. But not just any outdoor seating, but what
looked like covered seating that swung - it is a little hard to tell from the image, but that's what it looked like as we drove
past (there are too many vertical bars for it NOT to be swinging seating).
A ten minute drive from The Vanguard brought us to the Milwaukee Central Public Library.
We crossed the street and looking back to the other side, saw three churches almost in a row.
There was a dome. Inside the library. The library.
The architecture was very impressive.
There was a self check-out. Like they have at the supermarket...
There was a children's room, with some artwork nearby as well.
There were two large rooms dedicated to CDs, and a larger one for DVDs (and video games?).
And an upstairs hallway.
We departed Milwaukee and headed to our next city: Chicago.
Even though it was on the early side, we still did a walk, a basillica, and the library.
We don't know if they were offering tours of the factory or not, but it might have been a nice treat
to have one of the bears "flied into my mouth".
For some reason, the phone camera had a BIG problem trying to focus on the "Welcome to Illinois" sign. It was
SO over exposed. This isn't even salvageable.
A massive trainyard.
With the low-fuel light on for a little while, we exited and filled up at the first station we came across, and paid
$4.899 per gallon. As proceeded on, we found there were stations that had gas for as low as $4.199. Oh well. We wanted
to make sure we didn't run out of gas, but had we known, we could have probably made it to a less expensive station.
When I put the address to the Carlton Inn Midway into the phone, but I missed a digit in the street number. And it was
significent because while we should have been heading to 4944 S Archer Ave, we started out going toward 494 S Archer Ave -
about 45 blocks in the other direction. After too many blocks, we eventually figured out what was going on, updated the
GPS, and started going into the right direction. We found the hotel and checked in.
I went back and asked the clerk about a supermarket. He said it was only a couple blocks away.
I asked if it was walkable, and he said yes. But we had already done a fair amount of walking this day,
so we drove instead. Good thing too because it turned out to be more like ten blocks, not two.
We wound up at an Aldi and picked up Wisconsin cheddar cheese, salad, and bread from Aldi. Aldi didn't sell
wine, but the clerk mentioned something about driving down the road to Pete's. We first encountered a Target
and the internet said they sold wine - so we stopped in, and they didn't. But next door was Pete's, so we
walked over and we got a bottle - for two nights.
We returned to the Midway hotel. While eating our meal, we figured out why the hotel was called Midway -
because it was in the Midway airport flight path. Plus the airport was less than two miles away.
Admittedly, the hotel had an "uneasy" vibe to it. Just one of those feelings. It turns out that there
was nothing to worry about, it was just a feeling.
Anyway, the parking lot was a little on the smaller side and we were driving a boat. I asked the clerk about
parking in the bank parking lot next door because it was a Saturday night and Sunday morning the bank wouldn't
have been open anyway. The clerk pointed out that about half of the lot is for their use anyway. So we left
the car where it was, and rolled the luggage into the room.
The room had a REALLY strong disinfectant smell - so we opened a window and turned on the HVAC fan.
We ate our snack dinner, did the luggage thing, and watched a little TV. The smell had disipated enough, and
we called it a night.